Bristol Palin speaks out for choice

Read the full story here.

Obama Reverses Abortion Ban!

Read more here.

Blog for Choice!

From Lauren:

Guess what, pro-choice America? IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN! Today is Blog for Choice Day, 2009!

For the past three years, pro-choice bloggers have come together on January 22 – the anniversary of Roe v. Wade – to write about our reproductive health and our pro-choice values in order to celebrate Roe and to keep choice in the national spotlight.

You don’t have to have your own blog to write – you can write a Facebook note, MySpace blog, update your status, Twitter, or anything else – just get it out there!

This year, we’re asking people to blog their answer to this question: What is your top pro-choice hope for President Obama and/or the new Congress ?

Let us know you’re going to write here.

Please consider taking a moment to promote it on your blog, telling your friends, and joining us tomorrow, so together we can ensure that on January 22, the blogosphere is flooded with pro-choice blogposts!

Lobby Day and Roe Rally in Helena!

Lobby Day

Thursday, January 22, 8:00 am
Montana Capitol, Room 335

Talk to your legislators about supporting reproductive rights and health! We’ll train you on effectively lobbying your legislators and give you an inside briefing on current bills related to reproductive rights and health. After meeting with your legislators you will also have the opportunity to have lunch with pro-choice elected officials.

To attend Lobby Day, register with Lisa at mtnaral@mt.net.

Following our morning of lobbying, we’ll meet in the rotunda for our annual Roe Rally with the Montana Reproductive Rights Coalition.

Roe Rally

Thursday, January 22, 1:00 pm
Montana Capitol Rotunda

Join NARAL Pro-Choice Montana and the Montana Reproductive Rights Coalition to celebrate 36 years of Roe v. Wade!

Last year over 200 people attended the Roe Rally, and we used that energy to kick off a campaign to defeat an attempt to ban abortion in our state constitution. We need your energy and support to have a successful legislative session where we beat back attempts to restrict reproductive rights and advance access to health care, birth control, and sex education. This is a great way for you to show your support for reproductive rights and health in Montana and demonstrate the power of Montana’s pro-choice majority.

Fact and Fiction: HIV/AIDS in Our World Today

Please join us at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, December 11th, for a discussion with nationally renowned HIV/AIDS specialist Dr. Beth Saltonstall.  The meeting will be held at Flathead Valley Community College in the large conference room in the Arts & Technology Building (downstairs).  Refreshments will be served.

Topics will include risk, prevention, testing, and management of the disease.  This information is invaluable to parents, teens, and anyone who is sexually active.

For more information, please send us an e-mail.  Hope to see you there!

Meeting – November 18th

All FVCC Students for Choice members and interested parties please meet us on Tuesday, November 18th, at 11:30 a.m. in LRC135.  It’s very important that you all attend this meeting – we have some business to get out of the way so that our group can be recognized by the college and continue with this very important cause in the years to come.

We will also have pro-choice information, buttons, stickers, and free condoms for everyone. If you can’t make it, please contact me ASAP.  See you all there!

Free. Will. Power.

NARAL Pro-Choice America has launched a new site: Free. Will. Power., a site that’s quite a bit more approachable than NARAL’s main site: it’s designed for a younger audience and filled with interesting information regarding each state and its approach to women’s reproductive rights.  Check it out – or enter their t-shirt design contest and win $1,000!

Iranian-American student released on bail

Esha Momeni, who was arrested October 15th for a traffic violation in Iran, has been released on bail:  Momeni’s parents have handed over the deed to their house in Iran in return for her release, though she has not yet been allowed to leave Iran.  Sources say that Hasan Hadad, the general deputy prosecutor for Tehran, still has every intention of charging Momeni with “propaganda against the state” for her part in the One Million Signature campaign – a group that is working to change laws in Iran which discriminate against women.

Montana’s Pro-Choice grade?

A-.

Not bad, considering that the nation as a whole earns a whopping D-.

What could we do better?

• Montana currently upholds an unconstitutional counseling requirement that a woman may not receive an abortion until 24 hours after a physician (or physician’s agent) provides her with state-mandated information, including: physical and psychological risks of abortion, lists of adoption agencies, anatomical drawings of the “unborn child” at two-week gestational increments, and information regarding state-funded pre- and neo-natal care.
• Montana also upholds a “parental notification” law, similar to that recently denied in California, that states that a young pregnant woman under the age of 18 cannot be granted an abortion until 48 hours after at least one parent has been notified of her intent by the physician or the physician’s agent.  State courts have held that this law is unconstitutional because it infringes, “without adequate justification, the privacy rights of pregnant young women who wish to terminate their pregnancies.” Wicklund v. State, No. ADV-97-671 (Mont. Dist. Ct. Feb. 12, 1999) (summary judgment), No. ADV-97-671 (Mont. Dist. Ct. Feb. 25, 1999) (permanent injunction), appeal filed, No. 99-311 (Mont. Apr. 15, 1999), appeal dismissed, (Mont. Nov. 29, 1999).  A young women can receive permission from a judge, but not until she has provided evidence that she has suffered from physical, emotional, or sexual abuse from one or both parents.
  

Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today.”

President-Elect Obama